Carolina Women’s Center director to participate in White House roundtable

Donna Bickford, director of the Carolina Women’s Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been invited to participate in the White House Compassion in Action Roundtable on Human Trafficking next week in Washington, D.C. This discussion will convene Oct. 24 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Room 450.

Human trafficking is a widespread form of modern-day slavery. Every day, all over the world, people are coerced into bonded labor, bought and sold in prostitution, exploited in domestic servitude, enslaved in agricultural work and in factories and captured to serve unlawfully as child soldiers. The roundtable will focus on policy enforcement and victim care, with an audience comprised of government officials, policymakers, business leaders, foundation representatives, philanthropists and faith-based and community leaders.

The Carolina Women’s Center works toward eradicating sex trafficking by generating knowledge about trafficking practices and raising public awareness about the human rights violations caused by trafficking, including the mental and physical effects on its victims, and the impact on communities. In April 2006, the center hosted an international conference on sex trafficking. The center’s next conference, “Combating Sex Trafficking: Prevention and Intervention in North Carolina and Worldwide,” will be held April 3-4, 2008, at UNC’s William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education. This conference will concentrate on demand, the impact of sex trafficking on communities of color and childhood sexual exploitation. It will also include breakout sessions and working groups specifically on the impact of sex trafficking in North Carolina.

Dr. Richard C. Boucher received the first-ever “Champion for a Cure” award from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of North Carolina Monday (Oct. 15).

Boucher is a William Rand Kenan distinguished professor in the UNC School of Medicine and director of the UNC Cystic Fibrosis Pulmonary Research and Treatment Center.

The foundation selected Boucher to be the inaugural winner of what is intended to be an annual award for his dedication to improving treatments for those with cystic fibrosis and his determination in finding a cure for the disease.

The award was presented during the foundation’s Rod Brind’Amour Evening Gala, named for the Carolina Hurricanes’ center who supports the foundation.

Boucher has long been recognized as one of the nation’s leading figures in cystic fibrosis research. In 2000, he was among the top 10 in federal funding among principal investigators doing basic research that year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

He has published more than 400 articles on cystic fibrosis and gene therapy. He helped develop a gene “knock-out” mouse model for studying cystic fibrosis experimentally, conducted both animal and human trials of gene therapy for cystic fibrosis lung disease and developed novel drugs that are in late-stage clinical testing in cystic fibrosis patients.

In addition, Boucher is among key UNC faculty whose research is an important component of the university’s genome sciences initiative.